Quintus Hortensius

Quintus Hortensius Hortalus (114–50 BC) was a Roman lawyer, an orator and a statesman. Politically he belonged to the Optimates. He was consul in 69 BC alongside Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus. His nickname was Dionysia, after a famous actress. After his retirement Hortensius took up fish-breeding as a hobby. Cicero spoke of him as a Piscinarius – 'fish fancier'.

At the age of nineteen he made his first speech at the bar and shortly afterwards successfully defended Nicomedes III or IV of Bithynia, one of Rome's dependants in the East, who had been deprived of his throne by his brother. From that time his reputation as an advocate was established. Through his marriage to Lutatia, daughter of Quintus Lutatius Catulus and Servilia, he was attached to the aristocratic party, the optimates. During and after Lucius Cornelius Sulla's dictatorship the courts of law were under the control of the Senate, the judges themselves being senators.

To this circumstance perhaps, as well as to his own merits, Hortensius may have been indebted for much of his success. Many of his clients were the governors of provinces which they were accused of having plundered. Such men were sure to find themselves brought before a friendly, not to say a corrupt, tribunal, and Hortensius, according to Cicero was not ashamed to avail himself of this advantage. Having served during two campaigns (in 90 and 89 BC) in the Social War, he served as quaestor in 81, aedile in 75, praetor in 72, and consul in 69. In the year before his consulship he came into collision with Cicero in the case of Gaius Verres, and from that time his supremacy at the bar was lost.

After 63, Cicero gravitated towards the faction to which Hortensius belonged. Consequently, in political cases, the two men were often engaged on the same side (e.g., in defence of Gaius Rabirius, Lucius Licinius Murena, Publius Cornelius Sulla, and Titus Annius Milo). After Pompey's return from the East in 61, Hortensius withdrew from public life and devoted himself to his profession. He may have assisted Cicero in the defence of Gnaeus Plancius [la] against a charge of electoral malpractice (ambitus) in 54 BCE: Cicero mentions him in his speech, the Pro Plancio, but Hortensius's relationship to the case is uncertain.

He owned the Villa della Palombara near Rome and another in Gaeta.

In 56, Hortensius admired Cato the Younger "so much that he wanted them to be kinsmen, not merely friends," and proposed to marry Cato's daughter, Porcia Catonis, who was only about 20 years old at the time. Since Porcia was already married to Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus and had borne him children, Cato refused to dissolve the marriage. Instead, Cato offered his own wife, Marcia, on the condition that Marcia's father, Lucius Marcius Philippus, approve as well. Consent was obtained and Cato divorced Marcia, thereby placing her under her father's charge. Hortensius promptly married Marcia, who bore him a child. After Hortensius' death in 50 BC, she inherited "every last sesterce of his estate". This caused a minor scandal, as after Hortensius' death she remarried Cato, making both of them rich.

In 50, the year of his death, he successfully defended Appius Claudius Pulcher when accused of treason and corrupt practices by Publius Cornelius Dolabella, afterwards Cicero's son-in-law.

His daughter Hortensia became a successful orator. In 42, she spoke against the imposition of a special tax on wealthy Roman matrons with such success that part of it was remitted. His son Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, a friend of the poet Catullus, was granted the governorship of Macedonia in 44 by Julius Caesar, before switching allegiance to Brutus and perishing after the debacle of the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC. He likely also had a child with Marcia, possibly a daughter or son who became the mother or father of Marcius Hortalus.